Great customer service: exceed expectations with excellence.

• Author: Dee, Kevin M.
• Position: HR Matters - Travel narrative

I traveled a lot last month for work. I experienced fatigue, jet lag, and some logistical nightmares. I was greeted on several stops by people who went out of their way to make my travels easier for me. This tired traveler's weariness was lightened by the simple kindnesses of great customer service. I can't begin to express how much it is appreciated. I was shown above and beyond kindness by people who did not have to do so. The service and support stuck with me and definitely turned my tired and grumpy attitude to grateful and relieved.

Wrangling with Eeyore

How many times has someone gone out of their way to help you? To give you service beyond your expectations? It makes you remember the person who was being of service and more than likely you will tell others about how great you were treated. When I facilitate customer service classes, we could spend hours on the examples of good and bad service. Many businesses want to and claim to be service oriented but fall far short of meeting customer expectations. Just try calling a company you deal with regularly and listen for "Your call is important to us ... please hold." And then, as you sit there in voice mail hell hoping someone of reasonable competence will eventually pick up your call, you begin to wonder how important this call really is to them. If my call is truly important, why have I been stuck on hold for eighteen minutes? Finally, someone picks up and sounds as tired and despondent as you feel and you realize that Eeyore is on the other end of the call. After wrangling with Eeyore for twenty minutes and listening to "that will never happen ..." and "you must be doing something wrong" delivered in Eeyore-speak, you decide to ask for a manager. After ten more minutes on hold you are disconnected. Is there really any reason to wonder why phone rage is on the rise?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

No Robots, Please

Companies tout their customer service as exemplary and management will argue that it is a cost-effective measure to have more automated systems that can handle all the transactions--but they are wrong. People want a person to talk to when things go wrong, not an automated labyrinth designed by the Marquis de Sade designed to test the very limits of your sanity. No one remembers an efficient computerized customer service system. It's more like we have varying degrees of frustrated tolerance for them. And our attitudes on how we are being treated by the robot-voiced systems translate...